


Earth, Fire, Wind

by closemyeyesandleap



Series: Families of SHIELD [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Marriage, T rating for language and some violence, Team as Family, Terrigenesis, changes, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-06 16:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closemyeyesandleap/pseuds/closemyeyesandleap
Summary: Daisy's having a rough year.Parenting a teenager, leading SHIELD, trying to deal with the mistakes of her past, and combatting a new resurgence of Watchdogs is taking its toll.Things only get more difficult when her daughter unexpectedly goes through terrigenesis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story builds off of the other works in my "Families of SHIELD" series. It is possible to read this as a stand alone, but to quickly recap:  
> \- Daisy and Robbie are married and have a 13-year-old daughter named Gaby.  
> \- Fitz and Simmons are married and have an 18-year-old daughter named Samantha and a 13-year-old son named Leo.  
> \- Mack and YoYo are married and have a 19-year-old daughter named Rosy and 15-year-old twin sons named Alphonso and Antoine.  
> \- Coulson is alive and lives with May, and Daisy's daughter calls them Grandpa and PoPo.  
> \- Daisy is director.

“All agents converge on the building!” Daisy hissed into her coms. She kept her left arm raised ready to strike any enemy that moved as she rushed through the backdoor.

Through the roof and through the front, the dozen other agents she commanded followed suit.

“I’m picking up about twenty heat signatures now,” Fitz stated through the coms from Zephyr III. “About half are congregated in a large room that appears to be some sort of meeting or break room.”

“Copy. You got that, YoYo?” Daisy whispered.

“On it,” YoYo muttered through the coms, a smiling playing in her voice. A pack of Watchdogs in one place were sitting ducks for one well-trained agent with super speed and stunner bracelets. 

Daisy continued to creep through the halls, lightly pushing doors open to check if anyone was hiding inside. 

The coms crackled for a moment with the signature whooshing sound that emerged when Elena used her powers and then the other agent spoke. “Eight down. Checking the front quadrants of the first floor now.”

“Great, YoYo.”

“Careful, Daisy. Two in the room to your right,” Fitz advised. 

Daisy crept to the door and pushed it open. Two small blasts of her ICER sent the Watchdogs sprawling across the floor, unconscious.

“Watch––”

Daisy felt the vibration behind her before Fitz spoke and spun to meet the new attacker. A sharp pain raced across her face as the new Watchdog’s knife grazed her. She sent a strong quake into his core. With a thud, he smashed unconscious into the opposite wall. 

She fought her way to the center of the compound, dropping two more Watchdogs along the way. 

“Third floor’s clear, Director,” Marshall, a junior agent, panted into the coms.

“Second floor’s clear,” Piper added. 

Daisy glanced at YoYo, who nodded with a grin over the pile of unconscious Watchdogs below her. 

“First floor, too,” Daisy stated, raising her hand to touch the cut on her face. Blood was dribbling down her chin, but the cut didn’t feel deep. “Good work, everyone. Let’s get these idiots and their armory back to base.”

* * *

By the time the team had unloaded the last Watchdog from the Zephyr in handcuffs, Daisy felt exhausted but pleased. 

“Congratulations!” Simmons called as Daisy entered the lab.

Daisy nodded. “Thanks, Jemma. Four months of tracking and intel gathering and we’ve finally taken down their headquarters. Now we just have to process and interrogate the hoard. Twenty-two guys. What? No Inhuman-hating, weapons-happy ladies they could have recruited?” she asked with a smirk.

Simmons snickered. “Apparently they couldn’t be bothered. What can I do?”

“Monitor their health. Make sure none of them show any signs of artificially enhanced abilities or Inhuman powers.” Daisy sighed. “I’m probably going to be here all night and for the next week straight.”

Simmons nodded. “Twenty-two patients? I will as well, I’m sure.” She checked her watch. “It’s going on three. Do you need Sam to drive Gaby home from school today?” Jemma’s eighteen-year-old daughter attended the same school as Daisy’s thirteen-year-old, which came in handy on days like these.

Daisy shook her head. “Thanks, but she’s got soccer till five-thirty, and then Robbie’s going to pick her up.”

“Oh, right! The season started again, didn’t it? We’ll have to come out to one of her games soon.”

“She’d love that.” Daisy reached up and stroked her hastily-bandaged cheek absentmindedly.

“I should have a look at that cut,” Jemma murmured, narrowing her eyes. “This always seems to happen to you.”

Daisy shrugged, but let Jemma tend to her. After Jemma put the final butterfly bandage over the wound, Daisy pulled herself away. 

“Hopefully we can get some of these idiots to flip soon, tell us where the rest are hiding out.”

Daisy’s elation had faded since she landed, and exhaustion and regret settled back into the pit of her stomach. “They’re like cockroaches, these Watchdogs. No matter how many we squash, they just keep crawling out of the corners and wreaking havoc, especially since what happened in Hartford.”

“Oh, Daisy, you can’t keep beating yourself up about that.”

“Three kids died, Jemma. _Three._ Maybe I’m not to blame for the first one, but if I hadn’t been so stubborn in insisting that it wasn’t an Inhuman, he wouldn’t have gotten to the other two. Their deaths are on me. As is the increase in Watchdog activity and hate crimes in the last… what is it now? Six months.” She shook her head. “No, that’s all on me.”

Simmons placed her hands on Daisy’s shoulders. “Don’t do that. They looked like suicides. Who could have known that he had the power to feed on other people’s happiness? That’s hardly a standard Inhuman power. You’re being too hard on yourself. This is a big win today.”

Daisy’s stomach turned. If Daisy were honest with herself, the Hartford killer's powers seemed more familiar to her than she cared to admit.

Daisy balled her fists. “It’ll be a big win when we wipe out these Watchdog bastards for good.”

* * *

“See, you seem to be under the impression that you’re winning. You think your guys on the outside are going to stand up for you? You’re just cannon-fodder to them. Look, we know you’re not the… biggest dog of the pack, we could say.” Daisy looked down her nose at the Watchdog handcuffed to the interrogation table. The man sneered back up at her. “Just give us a tip about Watchdog activities and we may be able to get you a pretty nice deal.”

The Watchdog didn’t say anything. 

Daisy strolled around the room, pretending like she couldn’t care less about his response. But she was an hour and a half into interrogations after the long mission, and her feet ached. Her body protested beneath the oppressive bullet-resistant material of her tactical suit and snug gauntlets that she continued to wear for intimidation.

She bent over him. “Otherwise… I know the courts around here don’t look too kindly on domestic terrorists.”

The Watchdog finally spoke. “Oh, I don’t know… You seemed to have gotten on just fine. You’re free to promote your agenda, to use money _true_ Americans pay in taxes to protect other freaks like you…” he paused and raised his gaze to look Daisy directly in her eyes. “…And to spawn a little monster of your own.”

Daisy’s blood turned to ice. She pushed down the desire to quake the smirking man so hard that his handcuffed hands detached from his body. 

Instead, she lowered her voice to a growl. “We’ll do it your way, then,” she murmured in his ear before striding cooly out of the room.

* * *

“Oh, there you are! Other than some blood pressure issues, everyone apprehended is in perfect health!” Jemma said brightly as she intercepted Daisy as she stormed back to her office. “Something wrong?” Jemma added when she caught sight of her friend’s face.

“Fine,” Daisy muttered as she continued to walk down the hallway.

“Well, did they give you something we can work on?” Simmons asked as she followed Daisy into her office.

Daisy snorted. “When have we ever been that lucky?”

“True. What’s bothering you, though?”

Daisy sat down and put her head in her hands. “This last guy I spoke to… he mentioned Gaby.”

“What? By name?” 

Gaby’s existence wasn’t exactly a secret but over the last thirteen years Daisy had managed to keep information about her daughter out of the media.

Daisy shook her head. “Not exactly. He just looked straight at me and said that I had ‘spawned a monster.’ He had this awful look in his eye. I don’t know, Jemma.” 

“Oh, Daisy,” Jemma sighed. “He probably was just spouting the same old Watchdog nonsense with an added dose of misogyny for good measure.”

Daisy shrugged and absentmindedly picked up her cellphone, which had been laying on her desk since she had arrived back from the message. Her stomach turned when she saw she had 5 missed calls, 2 voicemails, and 9 text messages.

All but one of the messages were from Gaby Reyes. The other was from Phil Coulson.

“Shit,” she whispered, panic flooding her veins. 

She scrolled through the texts first.

__

_**2:45 p.m.**  
hey mom, just got out_

_**3:15 p.m.**  
mom?_

_**3:20 p.m.**  
mom???_

_**3:21 p.m.**  
where are you guyssssss?_

_**3:25 p.m.**  
why arent you answering :/_

_**3:26 p.m.**  
i dont have soccer today remember???_

_**3:35 p.m.**  
are you ok?? :( _

_**3:45 p.m.**  
did you guys just forget me or something?????_

_**4:00 p.m.**  
i called grandpa. i’ll be at his house if you care_

“Daisy, are you okay?” Jemma asked as Daisy stared at her phone. Daisy didn’t answer. Instead, her heart still racing, she moved to the voicemails. Deep down, she knew her paranoia was getting the best of her, but logic wasn’t on her side at the moment.

The voicemail from 3:00 p.m. was upbeat: “Hey, Mom!” Gaby’s cheery voice said. “Is traffic bad or something? I’m waiting out back. You know, same place as always! See yah when I see yah! Bye!”

Daisy sighed and listened to the voicemail from 4:05 p.m. Shame churned in her stomach as she heard Coulson’s warm voice: “Hi, Daisy. Gaby called me. I’m driving to pick her up now, and she can stay with me and Melinda as long as she needs to until you or Robbie can pick her up. I hope you and Robbie are safe. Come home as soon as you can.”

Daisy let the hand holding her phone fall by her side. 

“Everything alright, Daisy?” Jemma asked, worried.

“Gaby didn’t have soccer,” Daisy muttered. 

“She’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, she’s with May and Coulson. S- sorry, I’ll be back as soon as I can. Can you tell Piper to take lead on the interrogations while I’m away?”

“Of course. You sure everything is okay?” Jemma asked. Daisy still looked far too agitated. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.” Daisy turned and rushed out of the office.

As she raced down to the hangar, Daisy sent two quick messages, one to Coulson and the other to Gaby.

“Coulson, we’re fine. We’re leaving now. Thanks.”

To Gaby, she wrote, “Honey, I’m so sorry I missed your calls. Your papa and I will be there in about a half hour. Love you.”

She slammed open the door to the hangar, harder than she intended.

“ _Qué pasó?_ Oh, Daisy. You surprised me,” Robbie said, putting down the wrench he was using. “I’m about to head out in five to pick up Gaby. How’s the kennel upstairs?”

“Has Gaby texted you?”

Robbie shrugged. “I don’t think so.” He scanned his work bench. “Hm, have you seen my phone, love? I could’ve sworn I left it here.”

Daisy shook her head. “When did you last have it?”

“I don’t know… maybe lunch? What? Wait, is Gaby okay? What happened?”

“What happened? Well, we left our kid at school while we just went around living our lives and she called us, I don’t know, dozens of times, and we couldn’t be bothered to answer.”

“But she’s okay, right?” Robbie asked sharply.

“Coulson and May have her.”

“ _Qué bueno,_ ” Robbie sighed. “Okay, I’ll go pick her up now.”

“That’s it?”

Robbie furrowed his brow. “Yeah? Things like this happen, Dais. She’s safe, that’s what matters.”

Fire licked through Daisy’s veins. Her nerves were on edge from the mission, and now this…

“Maybe you don’t care that we just… abandoned our kid, but I do. Let’s go. I’m coming too.”

She stormed away. Robbie gave one last glance around the hangar for his lost phone and then ran off after his wife.

“Hey, Daisy. Wait,” he said in a soothing voice. “We didn’t abandon her. Things like this happen. I lost my phone, you had a mission—” he reached up and caressed her cut cheek, “––a hard one, it looks like.” Daisy jerked away. “It was just a perfect storm, but everything’s fine,” Robbie insisted. 

“No, things like this don’t just happen,” she argued. “Not to me. Not to our family. We always said she would come first—”

“And she does! Do you know how many times I got stuck at work and ended up picking up Gabe late, or showed up at his school at 3 p.m. sharp even though he had two more hours for Robotics Club? That’s just life, _amor_.”

“Well, you didn’t have a dangerous job that left Gabe thinking that you probably had died… well, that he knew about, anyway,” Daisy responded, but her breath was slowing. “Gaby was scared for us, and that’s not okay.”

“Hey,” Robbie whispered, pulling Daisy into his arms. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Gaby couldn’t ask for a better mom than you, and I like to think I’m pretty okay too. She knows that you love her. This one little thing isn’t going to change that, not when every single thing that you do shows how much you love her.”

Daisy nodded. “Alright.” She paused. “And Robbie? You’re so much more than okay.”

* * *

Rush hour traffic was particularly grueling, much to Daisy’s ire, and by the time that she and Robbie got to Coulson and May’s house, Daisy didn’t bother knocking before striding into their house.

She should have known better. She ran straight into May, whose fists were raised. 

“Don’t do that,” May said with a glare, though her eyes glittered. Her eyes settled on the gash on Daisy’s face. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Daisy said dismissively. “Gaby?”

“She’s in the kitchen doing her homework.”

Daisy strode into the kitchen. The smell of warm chocolate chip cookies wafted over her. Gaby was sitting at the kitchen table, her right hand dipping a cookie in a glass of milk and her left hand gripping a pencil. 

“Your mom’s here, Gabs.” Coulson called from the sink. Coulson shot Daisy a smile. 

Gaby, on the other hand, dropped the cookie she was holding into the milk and bent lower over her math homework with a scowl on her face. 

Daisy walked up to her daughter and brushed her long bangs out of her face. “You have a good day at school, sweetie?”

Gaby sniffed but didn’t answer. 

“I’m sorry we were late, honey. It won’t happen again. You did the right thing when you called Grandpa. I’m proud of you.” 

Gaby turned away. She circled her answer and put her pencil into her backpack. “Done, Grandpa,” she called to Coulson. 

“There’s my _princesa_ ,” Robbie called, joining his family in the kitchen. Gaby didn’t acknowledge him either. 

“Gaby,” Daisy said in a voice she intended as stern but that came out as desperate. 

Gaby shot her a glance, then hugged Coulson. “Thanks for the cookies.”

“Anything for _my_ favorite cookie,” Coulson smiled as he hugged Gaby, shooting an apologetic look at Daisy over his granddaughter’s head.

“Go say goodbye to your PoPo and we’ll head out, okay?” Daisy told her daughter. The girl turned and sulked out of the room. 

“You sure you’re okay, Daisy?” Coulson asked after Gaby was gone. “Bad mission?”

Her eyes fell. “No, the mission actually went well.” She dropped her voice. “To be honest, I just completely forgot her soccer was cancelled. And I was so wrapped up in the post-mission processing that I didn’t check my phone for hours.”

“ _We_ forgot,” Robbie corrected. 

“It happens. Don’t beat yourselves up.” Coulson said soothingly. “She got Grandpa Phil’s Famous Home-Baked Cookies out of the mix, so I think she’ll be okay.”

“I don’t think she’s been this mad at us in years,” Daisy fretted.

“She’s thirteen, Daisy. It’s probably going to happen more and more. And she was scared. No—” he added at the flash of pain that crossed Daisy’s visage. “—please, don't. Like I said, it happens.”

Daisy sighed. “Somehow it was easier dealing with a dozen angry Watchdogs who think I’m the devil than one hurt and angry teenager.”

Robbie kissed Daisy gently on the cheek and Coulson squeezed her shoulder. “You don’t have to do either job alone,” Robbie murmured.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy has a disturbing dream that pushes her to work harder in her fight against the Watchdogs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: the dream part (italicized portion) includes some brief but graphic imagery, including one bit that, while not a suicide, could be a suicide trigger. You can skip the italicized part and just start reading at the normal text if you think that will be a problem, and you will still be able to follow the story.

_Daisy stood in a dark room._

_A horrible wail echoed around the cavernous space. What was making such a sound?_

_Daisy took a few steps forward, hand outstretched to combat an invisible foe. But none appeared._

_She kept walking deeper into the dark. Her heart felt as empty as the room around her._

_A dark figure approached from the distance. Her fingers stretched still wider as she prepared to strike._

_The figure came into full view. With a gasp, Daisy staggered backwards._

_“You did this,” the figure said._

_Blood raced down from his wrists to his hands and pooled on the floor. He was just a boy, no more than fifteen, with sandy blonde hair and a crooked Red Sox cap._

_His already pale skin grew whiter and whiter, and he collapsed in a heap before her._

_The wailing in the background grew louder._

_“No,” she stammered, falling to her knees to try to save the boy._

_But he had disappeared. In his place, two new bodies lay in the puddle of blood, a girl about seventeen with a tangle of dark hair and broken eyeglasses and a tiny boy, no more than ten._

_Instinctively, Daisy scrambled backwards, away from the bodies. The wailing seemed to be pounding inside her own head now._

_Slowly, she raised her head, and to her horror, saw bodies scattered throughout the cavernous void._

_She couldn’t put a name to any of them, not at first, but deep down, she knew they were Inhuman. She pulled herself to her feet and staggered from one body to the next. The guilt, the horror, clung to her body like a shroud._

_Daisy finally could not take it any more. She fell to her knees by a body, tears running down her face. When she opened them, she let out a shriek._

_Before her was the body of a tiny teenage girl, dark bangs growing out and face spattered with freckles, wearing a dress dotted with a variety of planes. The normally gray dress was soaked red._

_It was Gaby._

_Daisy collapsed in a heap, sobbing noiselessly. Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Rather than comfort, the hand seemed to be draining her body of all its energy, all her willingness to live—if any remained to be drained at all._

_She turned her head. It was him. He sneered, victorious. With the last ounce of energy she had left, Daisy raised her hand and quaked him in the face, sending him flying._

_Her body began to shake, not with vibrations but by strong hands. “Daisy!” she heard from a distance._

“Daisy!”

Daisy jolted awake. Sweat covered her body. The comforter that normally adorned her and Robbie’s bed lay in a heap across the room. The mountain landscape, the one that so reminded her of Afterlife and that normally hung on their wall, sat on top of the comforter, the frame cracked.

“Shit, sorry,” Daisy muttered. 

“Nah, I’d rather you quake the comforter in your sleep than me,” Robbie shrugged as he got up on his elbows and looked at Daisy. He lowered his voice. “Was it the same dream again?”

Daisy shuddered. She pulled her arms into her chest and nodded. 

“Damn,” Robbie murmured, moving over to cuddle Daisy in his arms. “I’m so sorry, love.”

Daisy didn’t respond. She closed her eyes and could see everything from the dream so clearly—the faces of the three kids that were killed as she insisted an Inhuman was not to blame, the heartless sneer of the man who had taken their will to live, the representations of all the Inhumans who had been killed in retaliation over the last six months, and, and…

“Gaby was in it this time,” she whispered. “She was… like the others. Dead.” Tears that had been brimming in her eyes slipped down her face. 

Robbie squeezed her tighter. “It wasn’t real. She’s alive and safe, right down the hall.”

“Yeah,” Daisy muttered. “But the rest was real. That all happened… all those people.” She took a deep breath. “And if we can’t stop the Watchdogs, it’s just going to keep happening.” 

Daisy checked the phone laying beside their bed and sighed. 3:55 A.M. She wriggled out of Robbie’s arms and swung her legs over the bed.

“Do you really need to leave this early?” Robbie asked trying to pull her back.

Daisy hastily wiped away a tear. “Are you kidding me? I have morning training, not to mention a dozen more Watchdogs to interrogate.”

“Stay in bed. Tell someone else to take the first shift,” Robbie yawned. 

“I can’t. YoYo and her team flew out last night on a mission following up on some of the leads we’ve gathered already. Piper is coordinating from––”

“Yeah, but Daisy, you run an entire spy agency. You’ve gotta have someone other than YoYo or Piper.” 

Daisy shook her head. “No, this is too important. This is on me, and it’s my responsibility to fix it. Tell Gaby I missed seeing her before school this morning.”

Robbie nodded reluctantly. “See you at SHIELD in a few hours, then. And if you have a free moment, come hit me up in the hangar. I’m adding a new feature to the fleet that will really blow your mind.”

Daisy gave him a slight smile as she got up. “Only you could make quinjet repair sound sexy.” 

After getting dressed, Daisy crept down the hallway before leaving for the day. She gently opened Gaby’s door and bent over her daughter’s bed. Somehow, even with the commotion from her quaking a picture off the wall, the girl remained fast asleep, a tangle of limbs in a room that looked somehow both too big and too young for her. 

Daisy’s heart twisted as the image from her dream flashed through her mind. She shook her head, trying to push away the memory.

“Love you, sweetheart,” she whispered as she kissed her daughter’s forehead. “See you tonight.”

* * *

“Everything okay?” Jemma asked cheerfully as Daisy stepped into her lab an hour later.

“You’ve asked me that a dozen times in the last 24 hours, you know that?”

“You seem stressed. And after everything that’s happened this year, it’s just…I worry about you. You’ve been all but living here the last few months, and I have no idea when you sleep. It's not healthy.”

“I’m fine, Jemma.”

“Tragedies happen, Daisy. I know you’re trying to make up for what happened, but working yourself to the bone isn’t the answer.”

“Seriously, let it go. I’m fine. And I’ll be better once we can get to the root of this new Watchdog movement and tear it out for good.”

“And then what? Hate groups will never be gone for good. There will always be people who see their power slipping away and allow their fear to grow into hate for anyone who is different. If it’s not the Watchdogs, it will be someone else.”

“Maybe,” Daisy murmured. “But this hate group? They’re my responsibility. And the most worst part is that because of what happened, more and more normal people are starting to support them. It’s so screwed up. One Inhuman commits a terrible act and suddenly Inhumans are public enemy #1, whereas at the same time every other month some completely non-enhanced angry white dude shoots up a half a dozen people and nobody is declaring open season on them.”

“You’re right. It’s not fair,” Jemma agreed. She opened her mouth to tell Daisy to take better care of herself, regardless, but at Daisy’s steely glare she thought better of it. Jemma considered for a moment and then adopted a more lighthearted tone. “You know they’ve taken to calling themselves the Neo-Watchdogs now? Not officially, but several of our guests have told Piper about it. Usually with a sneer that is not at all appropriate to how inane they sound.”

Daisy snorted. “Another group of idiots thinking that adding the word ‘Neo’ makes their regressive hate movement modern.”

“It’s embarrassing, really,” Jemma said, laughing now. “Although I did have to stop Leo from calling himself Neo-Leo, the other day.”

“Really?” Daisy asked with a slight smile.

Jemma grinned in response. “Yeah. They’d been doing Greek prefixes in school, and he thought it sounded cool. I had to explain to him that it carried a, well, let’s say, less than positive connotation.”

“And how’d he take that?”

Jemma shrugged. “He pouted for a while, of course, but then he settled for ‘Leo the Younger.’”

Daisy gave a full smile. “He’s quite a kid, that one. Anyway,” she sighed, “Back to the doghouse.”

* * *

The morning passed tediously. It was always hard to distinguish low-level lackeys from bosses playing dumb, and after her dream and lack of sleep, Daisy’s mind wasn’t 100% in the game.

By one o’clock, Daisy had a board full of theories and a map covered in pins with potential Watchdog hideouts––far too many to all be accurate.

It seemed like another long night of sifting through leads and interrogating suspects. 

She walked wearily into the next holding cell for interrogation. Her first impression of this particular Watchdog was that he was bored and not all that bright. 

“So you’re saying that you have a satellite in space with a… what was it, invisible laser pointed at earth?” Daisy asked, trying and failing to keep the dripping skepticism out of her voice.

“Yeah. And yah’re not gonna find it before it blows yah up.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. Death, destruction, Watchdogs will exact revenge on the Inhumans and everyone who has ever supported them. You guys really are a broken record.” She sighed. “But why am I asking a pawn like you? They probably don’t even tell you what they’re ordering for takeout, let alone mission plans or secret bases.”

“Oh, really? Would a pawn know about the laser beam, hm?”

 _Damn._ Apparently the needling was yielding the same old delusions of grandeur rather than new intel. 

Urgent pounding on the door ripped her from her thoughts. Daisy bristled. She always preferred that her agents not interrupt her during an interrogation, no matter how useless that interrogation may be.

“What?” she growled as she opened the door. “Couldn’t it’ve—Simmons?” 

The sight of her friend, breathless and white-faced, stopped Daisy’s words in her throat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD receives a call reporting suspicious activity at Gaby's school.

Jemma stood silently in the doorway, breathing hard.

Daisy shut the interrogation room door behind her and stared her friend in the eyes, her heart racing. After a moment, Jemma spoke.

“Daisy, we just got a call.”

“About what? What happened? Another Watchdog attack?”

Jemma shook her head, fidgeting. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s about the kids’ school.”

“Wha… what?” Daisy managed to ask.

“So far nobody has been reported as hurt,” Jemma rushed to assure her. “But something happened at the school. And Sam isn’t answering her phone,” she finished softy.

Daisy blinked at Simmons, trying to understand. “The kids don’t usually have access to their phones during the day, right? That could be why.”

Jemma nodded. “It could. Sam’s gotten in trouble a half a dozen times for sneaking her phone around with her, though. I guess I just hoped this was one of those times,” she murmured. 

“But what happened? Did the school call all the parents?” Daisy asked, trying to control her panic.

Jemma shook her head. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. SHIELD got the call, from the school’s security. They suspect an Inhuman or Inhuman-related activities.”

“Wait, why?”

“The phenomenon is manifesting itself in an extremely destructive localized weather event. A windstorm, to be more exact. An evacuation was conducted with the students and faculty, but the security guards have yet to locate the precise source,” Jemma finished, reverting to the technical language she always used when worried.

The implication hit Daisy like a punch from the Hulk, but she tried her hardest to push it aside.

“Okay,” she muttered, mind racing. “We need to get there, now!”

“I came down as fast as I could,” Jemma said breathlessly. “I’ve only just heard. I—”

“Brief me while I walk. Piper,” Daisy said, pressing the coms attached to her blazer. 

“Hey boss, have you––”

“Listen,” Daisy cut her off. “I need you to call the team. You, Davis, Marshall, and Lee. Simmons and I will meet you in the hangar in five.”

“Wait, five? What kind of mission––”

“Now, Piper,” Daisy growled. 

“Aye-aye, Director.”

Once her coms clicked off, Daisy and Jemma shared a glance, and then rushed to the locker room.

“According to the guard who called, approximately thirty minutes ago the windstorm arose suddenly on campus,” Jemma explained as she pulled on her combat clothes and checked her sack with emergency medical gear. “The students and teachers have evacuated to the football field, which is far enough to be out of danger from the wind and flying objects, and they are currently taking roll to confirm that all children are accounted for.”

“Okay,” Daisy said slowly as she slipped into her tactical suit. “If they haven’t found the source, why do they suspect an Inhuman? Couldn’t it have been, I don’t know, a tornado or something?”

“Tornados don’t remain in one place for thirty minutes, nor are they that large. No natural weather phenomenon manifests like this.”

“Sure, but there are several other explanations. What if it’s something like Donnie Gill’s ice machine? Some of the kids at that school are scarily brilliant and the science teachers all have freakin’ PhDs.”

Jemma bit her lip. “Daisy, they also found scattered pieces of black rock in the cafeteria,” she said quietly. “That’s why they suspect an Inhuman.” 

Daisy blinked, trying to take in Jemma’s words. “When did you say the call came in?”

“Just now,” Jemma repeated.

The gauntlets that Daisy was holding in her hands began to shake. “So if everything started thirty minutes before… Jemma, that could’ve been Gaby’s lunch period.”

Jemma swallowed. “You don’t know that. There could be any number of explanations. Perhaps the rock is some other substance, or another child turned, or a teacher.”

“And if it’s not her, it could’ve been one of the Mackenzie twins, or both of them,” Daisy continued to worry aloud as if she hadn’t heard Jemma, pulling the gauntlets onto her arms. The added protection controlled the vibrations but did nothing to still the fear swelling inside her.

Jemma shook her head. “No, it couldn’t have been. The sophomores are on their class trip this week. I remember YoYo mentioning it the other day.”

Daisy hated herself for how her stomach twisted more at Jemma’s words rather than less. Pushing down that impulse, she responded, “Good… that’s good. At least they’re safe.”

They left the locker room and hurried to the hangar. When they reached the hangar door, Daisy moved to push it open, but Jemma stopped her. She placed her hands on Daisy’s shoulders and stared her straight in the eyes.

“They are _all_ going to be safe. You hear me? They will all get through this. No matter what happened. Okay?”

Daisy nodded and took a deep breath. Pulling herself together, she pushed open the hangar door.

Her team was waiting on the other side of the door, dressed in combat gear and ready to deploy. She sighed. She’d asked the impossible and somehow, they’d come through.

Hopefully it would be a trend for the rest of the mission.

“Where to, Director?” Piper asked. 

Daisy swallowed. “Lakewood Academy. Windstorm reported. Possible terrigenesis. No, um,” she cleared her throat. “No deaths or injuries, that we know of. Our mission is to ensure the safety of all students and teachers, intake any new Inhumans, and contain the environment.”

Daisy saw a look of knowing concern flit into Davis’ eyes. She looked away. Davis’ now college-aged sons had graduated from Lakewood, and he knew what was at stake if the mission went south.

“Alright everyone, to the quinjet.”

“Wait!”

The teams’ heads swiveled at Robbie’s graveling voice from behind the group. 

“I’m coming.”

Daisy’s heart twisted, but she shook her head. “You can’t. Stay here, and I’ll keep you posted as soon as I can.”

Robbie started forward despite Daisy’s words. “Like hell I’m—” he began, but Daisy grabbed him by the arm.

“No. Only one of us on a mission at a time, you know that.” Her heart pounded, and she resisted the overwhelming impulse to pull him into the quinjet behind her. She needed him by her side.

But years ago, she had established a policy at SHIELD, one she enforced and kept to the letter. No couple with children could serve on the same combat op together, no matter the circumstances. She had sworn she would never be the cause of a child being orphaned by a mission gone south.

“You can’t keep me from coming,” Robbie growled. “She’s my kid; she’s in danger. I’m coming.”

The team shared quick glances and boarded the quinjet, leaving Robbie and Daisy alone. 

“Damn it, Robbie. You stay here. We have these rules for a reason.”

Robbie’s eyes flashed a fiery red. “They’re just rules you made up! You want me to just sit here while my daughter could be hurt?! Not going to happen—” 

“You’re wasting time! You stay,” Daisy barked, her hands shaking. When he opened his mouth to object, she added, “That’s an order, Agent Reyes!”

The scowl remained on Robbie’s face, but he stepped back.

Daisy gave a curt nod. Before she boarded the quinjet, she turned back to Robbie. “I’ll keep her safe, Robbie,” she whispered.

The angry glow in his eyes softened. “I know.”

* * *

The flight from base to the school took barely five minutes. The team barely needed a brief—they’d done dozens of Welcome Wagon missions. Even though the school setting added an aspect of sensitivity, Daisy was confident that her team would perform with restraint and discretion, just like they always did.

No, the problem was her own heart, which was still racing despite all of the breathing techniques that she tried to employ. 

Jemma laid her hand over Daisy’s. 

“It was supposed to be safe,” Daisy whispered. “That school. It was supposed to be a place where nothing from the outside world would touch them.”

At first, Daisy had been less than thrilled with the idea of sending her daughter to private school. For her, the term “private school” evoked images of stern nuns talking of hellfire and eternal damnation and wealthier girls who sneered down their noses at her own scrappy appearance.

In the end, though, Jemma and YoYo had won her over. 

Fitz and Simmons’ daughter and Mack and YoYo’s twin sons and older daughter had been attending the school for years by the time Gaby reached kindergarten, and they had only good things to say about the quality of the teaching, the expansive—and rather hidden—grounds, and the top-notch security. After a childhood of constantly moving around, Daisy couldn’t help but admit that she was lured by the prospect of sending Gaby to the same school through high school. 

Besides, Daisy and Robbie felt guilty enough about not being able to give Gaby a sibling. They loved the idea that she would attend school with all the kids she considered cousins, especially Fitzsimmons’ son Leo, who was her age and one of her best friends.

Now, all those hopes had cracked, and Daisy feared that at any moment they would shatter for good.

The quinjet reached the outer fields surrounding the school quickly. Davis shifted the plane into vertical descent, making sure to land well away from the children and teachers gathered in the corner of the football field. When they saw the quinjet, several of the students started pointing and some of the smallest children even started jumping up and down in excitement.

The team disembarked from the quinjet and ran up to the crowd. The principal emerged to greet them, clutching a clipboard, the wind furiously tossing wayward strands of her hair.

“SHIELD?” she said with a quick glance at Daisy. “Good. Security is still in the building, trying to evacuate any students remaining inside, and to figure out what is causing all of this.” The principal gestured wildly back at the windstorm in the distance. 

“How many students are still inside?” Daisy asked.

“I, um…” the principal started to answer, terror flitting through her eyes. She pulled herself together. “Well, the teachers just finished calling roll. We’ve identified seven missing. It happened during the seventh and eighth grade lunch period, but immediately before the winds began, the lunchroom went dark, so none of the children or supervisors could say what happened. We think the kids that didn’t come out might be hiding in the bathrooms, though we’re hoping that maybe they just did not attend today, but were not marked as absent.”

“And how often does that happen?” Simmons asked.

“Very rarely,” the principal conceded.

“Names?” Daisy asked breathlessly, her heart pounding.

“Let’s see,” the principal murmured, looking at the clipboard. “Joaquin Stuart, 11th, Tory Jackson, 9th, Gabriela Reyes, 7th, Kamala Khan, 8th, Melissa Wang, 11th, Aaron Jacobs, 6th, and Samantha Fitzsimmons, 12th,” the principal read. 

“O- okay,” Daisy stuttered, sharing a terrified glance with Jemma. 

The principal looked between them, thrown off by how disturbed both women looked. She apparently had failed to recognize them from their brief meetings years ago when they enrolled their children at the school, nor had she matched their faces with the children she had just named. “Can SHIELD help?” the principal asked.

Daisy nodded. “Of course.” She noticed that several of the students were staring at her, their mouths open. A couple of kids had even managed to sneak their phones out and were snapping pictures. Had she not been so scared for her daughter, she would have rolled her eyes. Many of these same kids had seen her at dozens of soccer games and school plays and award ceremonies and had never once seen her as anything other than another student’s boring mom.

Daisy motioned to her team. Wordlessly, they started to run towards the building.

About one hundred yards from the building, a small group staggered past them, a security guard accompanied by four teenagers.

“Got them out!” the guard called, her voice barely audible. 

Daisy’s heart sank. Neither Gaby nor Sam was among the teenagers. “Names?” Daisy called.

“Mel Wang, Aaron Jacobs, um, your name, sweetheart?” The girl next to the guard answered the question, and the guard called, “Tory Jackson, and Joaquin Stuart.” 

“Great, good job,” Daisy said. “And the other missing children?” 

The guard shook her head. “These were the only ones we were able to locate, for now.”

“Okay, get them to safety,” Daisy called, picking up her pace as she rushed to the school.

As they approached the building, the winds gathered speed. The playground equipment was a mess, with swings ripped from their poles and branches from the surrounding trees hurling through the air.

“Stay sharp!” Daisy called to her team over the wind.

Her pulse raced as they pushed themselves closer and closer to the school.

The immediate surroundings of the main school building looked like a disaster zone. Car windshields were shattered. Debris lay all about the parking lot. Glass from broken classroom windows lay strewn across the sidewalks.

As they approached the cafeteria, the scene worsened. The cafeteria was lined with windows, all of which were broken. The team dodged flying lunch boxes and plastic utensils as they tried to enter the room.

“You guys with SHIELD?” 

Daisy turned. Another security guard was struggling to approach her, his hand raised to defend his eyes from projectiles in the air.

Daisy nodded. “Yes. Daisy Johnson,” she said, extending her hand. “What’s the situation here?”

“We got most of the kids and teachers out. My partner, Rawlins, is inside, searching for the suspect, but we haven’t been able to locate them yet.”

Daisy’s heart raced. “Suspect? Do you have evidence someone infiltrated the building?”

The guard shook his head. “No, ma’am. All indications point to the culprit being one or more of the students.”

Daisy tried to keep her rage in check. “Do not engage. We will take over from here.”

She looked around at her team. “Find the kids.” She and Jemma shared a glance. She knew Jemma was just as scared about Sam as she was about Gaby. What were the odds that of the three missing teenagers, two were the children of SHIELD agents? 

It was strange enough to raise suspicions and heighten her fear.

“Keep an eye out for intruders,” Daisy advised her team. 

They pushed their way into the cafeteria. Inside as well as out, food flew through the air accompanied by the occasional backpack.

“Daisy!” Jemma called. 

Jemma stood over a pile of rocks. They lay in a corner of the cafeteria, relatively shielded from the winds. “Look,” Jemma murmured.

Daisy approached her. 

Jemma gestured at another strew of rocks ten feet away. “It appears like more than one individual underwent terrigenesis,” she murmured.

Daisy, however, wasn’t looking at Jemma. Her eyes had settled on the lunchbox next to the rocks—a soft brown container designed to look like an antique suitcase covered in vibrant patches from exotic locations.

May had gotten Gaby that lunchbox for her thirteenth birthday, in recognition of her dreams of one day flying around the world in her own airplane.

“No,” Daisy choked.

Jemma wrapped her arm around Daisy’s shoulders. “We’ll find her. She’s somewhere. She’s going to get through this. She’s strong. And she’s got the very best mother in the world to help her through.”

“It should have never happened like this,” Daisy murmured. “I should’ve been there. She should’ve been at SHIELD, where it’s safe. It was supposed to be her choice.”

“I know,” Jemma said. “But she will get through this. She’s got you, and Robbie.”

Trembling, Daisy nodded.

“And you’ve got me,” Jemma finished, giving Daisy a final squeeze.

“We’ve got to find her,” Daisy said, looking around wildly.

“We will,” Jemma assured her. “And since this was seventh and eighth grade lunch period, I’m assuming the other child was the missing eighth grader, Kamala. I’m not sure whose powers are causing this.”

Daisy nodded, pulling herself together. “Okay. Fan out. Find them.”

The rest of the team scattered.

As Jemma darted down the hallway, Daisy cast one last look over the cafeteria. The children were nowhere to be seen. She ran into the hallway in the opposite direction from Jemma, her head darting from left to right.

_Slam! Slam! Slam!_

Daisy turned a corner and her heart dropped as she saw a security guard standing outside a locked door, gun raised, his foot colliding with the door over and over again.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. 

“One suspect has been located inside this supply closet,” the guard—Rawlins, she remembered—responded. “Attempting to apprehend.”

“Suspect?” she spat. “You mean a terrified, traumatized kid hiding in a closet? Stand down.”

The tall guard didn’t move or lower his weapon. “My job is to protect this school, and I’m going to do it.”

“SHIELD has this situation under control! Stand down!” Daisy shouted.

“With all due respect, ma’am, I am not leaving until I’ve contained the threat.”

“ _Contained_ the threat? You’ve got a kid hiding in a closet? That’s pretty much contained, don’t you think? Now get the hell out of here and do your job. Protect the children; don’t trap them in tiny rooms with guns.” Her voice had turned to ice, loud and penetrating, though her body shook.

A flash of such fear spread across the man’s face that Daisy glanced around the room to make sure nothing other than her own body was shaking, though it had been years since she’d lost control of her powers in a moment of rage. Sure enough, the ground was still. 

The air, however, swirled more violently than before. Childish projectiles flew straight at them—sporks and backpacks, ice packs and soda cans. Daisy deflected the objects with a quick quake and glared at the guard. “Get. Out.”

He returned her glare—if anything, his had deepened. After a moment, he seemed to decide against continuing to engage, and he let the hand holding his weapon fall to his side. 

“Just remember whose side you’re on,” he hissed. “If you ever knew.”

Daisy glared at Rawlins until the guard had completely retreated, then turned her attention back to the door.

She crept up to the locked closet. She could feel air rushing out through the cracks. The wind hissed and howled.

“Gaby?” she called gently through the door. Hearing no response, she put her ear against the door.

Through the whistling wind, she heard the heart-wrenching sound of tears. 

“Gaby, sweetie?” she called, a bit louder. “Kamala?” she tried, wondering if it was the other girl. 

She considered for a moment. She could easily quake the door open, but she would risk the door slamming into the child on the other side. Even if the door didn’t hurt her, the crash would inevitably scare the surely already traumatized child.

Slowly, Daisy lowered herself to the ground. She placed the palm of her hand on the tile. Daisy let her eyes flutter closed. Ever so gently, she released a wave of soft quakes that made the floor vibrate ever so slowly. 

Daisy placed her ear against the door again. The sobs had slowed. Then, she heard a tiny voice. “Mom?” 

“I’m right here, sweetheart,” Daisy answered, sending another round of vibrations into the ground as a soothing reminder of her presence. “Can you open the door for me?”

Instead of an answer, she just heard new sobs. 

“Gaby, I’m here for you. Can you let me in?” she tried again, to no response.

Daisy paused, then trying a new tactic. “I’m going to open the door, baby, but I need you to move away from it. Can you do that for me? It’s going to be okay, I promise.”

She didn’t hear a response but sensed a subtle vibration in the ground, an indication that the girl on the other side was indeed moving away.

Daisy prepared to open the door, but hesitated. A memory flashed through her mind, from nearly two decades before—of her terror at her unceasing quakes, of grabbing May’s ICER to make it all stop. At that thought, she snapped open her utility belt and tossed it behind her. No need for Gaby to get any ideas.

Daisy directed a quick, hard quake at the lock, and the door jolted open. 

The light poured into the room as a gush of air raced out of it. Daisy had barely managed to locate her daughter in between overturned boxes when a heavy object slammed into her shoulder. She looked up and dodged a canister that went whooshing past her left ear. Objects continued to fly at her, and Daisy raised her gauntleted arms to protect her face, leaving her body exposed to the onslaught of jars and cans and paper towels.

Of course, she could easily quake away the offending objects, but she had no way to guarantee that the ricochets would not hit Gaby. 

She inched forward, feeling bruises blossoming all over her body. Finally, she knelt on the ground next to Gaby and gave her a tight hug. She let her body send little quakes into her daughter’s, like she used to do when Gaby was little and would awake from her nightmares.

The howling wind slowed to a gentle breeze. Gaby’s sobs had softened, replaced by hiccups and a flow of tears. 

“I’m s- so, so s- sorry, Mommy,” Gaby choked.

Daisy tightened her embrace. “You have nothing to be sorry about, honey. I’m so sorry this had to happen now, the way it did. Listen to me. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“I- I hurt you,” Gaby cried.

Daisy shook her head. “No you didn’t, baby. I’m okay.” She glanced over her shoulder, out the closet door. Seeing nothing, she turned back to her daughter. “How are you feeling?”

Gaby choked out a sob. “Everything feels weird. My… my head is spinning. I’m dizzy. I- I’m ruining everything.” 

Daisy gave her daughter a squeeze. “This is all normal, Gabs. I know it feels awful now, but you will feel better. Trust me.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Gaby cried.

“Look at me. This isn’t your fault. None of this is.”

Gaby looked to the side and curled into a tighter ball. 

“Can you tell me what you were doing when you started to feel the rock on your body?” Daisy asked, caressing her daughter’s hand.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Gaby answered. “I- I was just eating. I d- didn’t do anything different. The lights went out right before. I couldn’t see if there was a m- mist. I couldn’t see anything.”

“How did people react when the lights went out?”

“S- same as always. Kids started screaming, trying to be funny. When I felt the rock, I… I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe for what felt like forever.” The winds in the room increased, and Daisy moved closer to her daughter to avoid the flying containers. “I mean, I- I knew what was going on, kinda, but I couldn’t really think when it happened.”

Daisy stroked Gaby’s hair. “That’s normal, sweetie. Were you still in the husk when the lights turned on?”

Gaby shook her head. “It had broken off. I felt like I was going to be sick. Things started flying everywhere. Everybody started running around like crazy. I- I thought it might be me and I ran away and locked myself here.”

“Okay. You did good. Do you know Kamala Khan, Gabs?”

“Kinda. We had gym together last year. She’s an eighth grader. Why?”

“Did you happen to see where she went when the lights turned back on?”

Gaby shook her head. Then, her eyes widened. Daisy had to duck to avoid a bucket flying into her head. “I didn’t hurt her, did I? Mom?”

“No, you didn’t. Not at all. We think she might be an Inhuman too, and have gone through terrigenesis when you did. We can’t find her.”

“Maybe I killed her and that’s why you can’t find her!” Gaby said hysterically.

“No, honey, you definitely did not. We just need to find her. Here,” she pulled her daughter to her feet. 

Mother and daughter made their way out of the closet, stepping gingerly over bottles and overturned containers. 

“Daisy, come in. Daisy!” 

“Simmons?” Daisy answered into her coms. 

“I found Kamala. She’s a shape shifter, apparently, so she instinctively made herself tiny when the chaos started. She was hiding in the cafeteria. I’ve got her now.”

“Have you seen Sam?”

“No,” Jemma answered quietly. 

“Is Sam an Inhuman too?” Gaby asked, her eyes wide. “Is she okay?”

“We don’t think she is, no. And she will be okay, Gabs. She will be,” Daisy answered.

Gaby was unsteady on her feet as she walked, dizzy from the effects of her terrigenesis, so the two advanced slowly. “Piper, Marshall, Lee,” Daisy said into her coms. “Search the building. Samantha is still missing.” 

“Breathe, sweetie. In and out, in and out,” Daisy instructed as she and her daughter made their way down the hall. The air seemed to be slowing. Gaby clung tightly to Daisy.

They were nearing the end of the hallway, about to round the corner when they heard a shriek.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New danger emerges at the school.
> 
> Later, Gaby struggles to come to grips with her powers.

“Mom!”

The shriek was followed by a series of crashes and the sound of three gunshots.

The breeze turned into a howling wind once more. For a millisecond, Daisy stood, stunned, needing to run to the scene, unwilling to leave her daughter or expose her to more danger. At the same time, she couldn’t just do nothing.

“Th- th- that was Sam’s voice,” Gaby wailed. 

Daisy nodded, making her decision. “I know. Stay here, Gabs. I’ll be right back.”

Daisy darted around the corner, her hand raised. The cafeteria was empty. Right outside the empty window frames, she saw a shock of red hair. 

So Sam was still standing. Daisy ran outside. 

“Aunt Daisy, they took my mom!” Sam yelled the second she saw Daisy. 

“I heard—oh.” Daisy saw Sam gripping an ICER in one hand, Daisy’s utility belt buckled around her waist. “Who took her? Where?”

“Up there! Some men, I don’t know. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t.” Sam paced from side to side, panic stricken. 

Daisy looked up and saw a helicopter being tossed in the wind. The roaring winds drowned out the sound of the blades.

“Somebody took Aunt Jemma?!” 

Gaby stood behind Daisy, unsteady on her feet, tears pouring from her eyes as the air around her grew increasingly violent.

Daisy glanced up at the helicopter and then at Gaby. “Go back inside, honey. Sam,” she begged, gesturing at Gaby.

“Wait,” Sam gasped. “Aunt Daisy, look.”

The helicopter keened from side to side in the heavy winds. Daisy felt a glimmer of hope that the helicopter would be forced to land. Then, her hopes turned to terror as the helicopter careened to the side and began to plummet from the sky.

Sam and Gaby shrieked in equal measure. “Get out of the way,” Daisy screamed, and thankfully, this time Sam obeyed, pulling the sobbing Gaby back into the cafeteria.

Daisy threw up her hands and quaked upward. She had never cushioned anything as massive as the helicopter. Every bone in her arms and shoulders protested, but Jemma was inside. She couldn’t let her best friend plummet to her death, even if the effort to save her broke every bone in her body. 

The helicopter landed hard on its side. Even so, Daisy’s quakes had provided enough cushioning that the occupants had likely survived. Daisy ran to the door, reaching for the ICER at her hip. Her hand brushed air. _Shit._ Sam still had the ICER. She flung her right hand back into the air, flinching as she did so, and crept up on the door. 

The door swung open, slamming into Daisy. She staggered to the ground. As quickly as she fell, she jumped to her feet.

She heard a sharp cry of pain and look up to see a man in a ski mask dragging Simmons out of the helicopter by the back of her shirt. Jemma had one arm wrapped around a teenage girl and the other was bent in an unnatural angle.

Daisy lifted her aching arm to quake the captor at the same time as she heard a gunshot. Milliseconds later, a flash of agony in her shoulder sent her falling backwards once again.

“Mom!”

The next moment was a blur. She saw Gaby running towards her from the corner of her eye and then heard another flurry of gunshots, one after another after another after another. 

“Gaby!” Daisy shrieked, pulling herself from the small puddle of blood that had formed underneath her injured shoulder. 

Her daughter lay on the ground, motionless. 

“I didn’t mean to hit her! Is she okay? Gaby!”

Sam rushed up to Daisy and Gaby, her hand shaking, clutching the ICER she had taken from Daisy earlier that day. Trembling, Daisy took her daughter’s pulse.

“She’s okay,” Daisy sighed in relief. “Just stunned.” Daisy looked up, ready to defend Sam and Gaby from the assailants, but found both of them lying on the ground, stunned.

Jemma sat on the ground, still clutching a now much smaller Kamala. After a moment, the girl returned to full size, shaking. “Are- are we safe now? And what the heck is happening to me?”

Jemma winced as she pulled herself and Kamala to their feet. “We’re safe. We’ll explain everything to you, I promise.” Turning to her daughter, she shouted, “Samantha Margaret Fitzsimmons, where on earth did you get your hands on an ICER?”

“I found it,” Sam said sheepishly. “And jeez, Mom, it stopped the bad guys so can I have a pass this time?”

Panting in pain, Jemma replied, “Found it? Are you sure you didn’t take it from your dad’s lab again?”

“Gosh, Mom. That was one time!”

“Jemma, Sam, is this really the moment?” Daisy asked in a tired voice, cradling her daughter. She pressed her coms, wincing as she did so. “Piper, come in. We’ve found all the girls. We have the two assailants Iced. We need medical. Marshall, stay and follow up with the principal. Inform her of the situation. Davis, bring the quinjet closer to the school. The rest of us are heading back to base.”

* * *

“How’s the other girl taking it?”

Daisy raised her head from her hands and looked at Robbie. “As well as could be expected, all things considered. Jemma is with her now, and her parents are on their way. She’s in the room next door.”

Robbie gently caressed his unconscious daughter’s hair. “That’s good. And Jemma?”

“Piper set her arm. She’ll be okay.”

Robbie nodded. 

“Gaby’s going to be out for a few more hours,” Daisy finally said. “Jemma said she will be fine, but the Dendrotoxin in the ICER wasn’t designed for someone so small, so its effect on her will last longer.” She stared at her daughter a moment longer, not wanting to move from her side, but the mission wasn’t over. She got to her feet, wincing at the motion in her shoulder and the ache of her muscles. “Stay with her, please?”

“ _Claro_. But c’mon, Daisy, stay and rest. You’re beat.” His eyes roved over her arms that were blotched with bruises and the bandage spotted with dried blood that covered the bullet wound in her shoulder.

Daisy shook her head. “I want to be back here when Gaby wakes up. But for now, I need to get to the bottom of what happened, starting with those men who tried to kidnap Simmons and Kamala.”

Robbie scooted over a few inches to leave room by his side. “Then stay here. Talk it out.”

Daisy sighed and settled back down next to Robbie. 

“Tell me again what happened.”

Daisy fiddled with her hands. “Gaby and Kamala both said that the lights turned off a few seconds before they went through terrigenesis. Neither of them seems to have that power, so we have to assume it wasn’t a coincidence. When the winds started, Gaby freaked out, ran, and hid. Kamala stayed in hiding in the cafeteria. The other students were evacuated, save for a few stragglers that a security guard recovered later. We showed up, spoke to the principal, and ran into the building looking for Gaby, Sam, and Kamala.” She lowered her head again. 

“What’s wrong? Did you remember something?”

Daisy shook her head. “The whole thing was a mess. It was a set up, and I didn’t even realize it. It’s a miracle nobody died.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“The mission was all wrong. I was hyperfocused on Gaby, and I didn’t pay attention to any of the signs. I took my ICER off, for goodness’ sake. One of those men could have just walked up behind me and shot me, and taken Gaby.”

“But they didn’t. Sam got it, and she used it to help.”

“We got lucky,” Daisy shrugged, and then winced as the motion aggravated the bullet wound in her shoulder. “It wasn’t a coincidence that those men were there. Jemma said that they yelled, ‘that’s her, get her!’ when they grabbed her and Kamala.”

“Could they have thought she was Gaby?”

“Maybe. We won’t know until they wake up, and I can question them. I mean, Gaby and Kamala don’t look that much alike,” Daisy murmured.

“Yeah, but how many girls in that room did they expect to turn? They must have seen Kamala’s powers and thought she was Gaby.” 

“But how could they have known that a child in that room would go through terrigenesis today at all? Unless…”

“Unless they were the ones who introduced the terrigen,” Robbie finished. “Damn.”

Daisy pulled herself to her feet and began to pace across the room. “So if that’s true, then the Watchdogs or whoever the hell this group is has access to terrigen. They knew that Gaby attends Lakewood but didn’t know exactly what she looks like—if Gaby was even the target in the first place!” She wrung her hands in frustration and cried out in pain. 

“Daisy, please. _Tranquila._ We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“And then what? There is no bottom! Jemma was right. The more we fight them, the deeper we dig ourselves into this damn hole. The public already thinks that Inhumans are coming for their children and now all they’re going to see is a school torn apart by an Inhuman, and more Inhumans are going to get hurt. It’s like the freakin’ Framework all over again. The public won’t care that they’re falling right into the bigots’ trap. And I couldn’t even keep her safe,” Daisy finished, her voice breaking. 

“No,” Robbie answered. “A building’s just a building. The kids are all safe; that’s what—” Robbie stopped talking as he saw Daisy’s hair fluttering in an ever-strengthening wind.

Daisy returned to her daughter’s side at once, bending next to the girl. Gaby had just sat up in the bed, her eyes bleary and full of tears.

“Sweetie, I didn’t mean to—”

“Just get out!” Gaby cried.

“You can’t hurt us. We’re right here with you.”

Gaby brought her knees to her chest and shook her head violently. “But I don’t want you here with me! Just leave me alone.”

Gaby’s breath was growing more rapid in time with the wind. Robbie and Daisy exchanged frightened looks.

“ _Princesa_ , we’re not going to leave you. I know this is a scary time and—”

“I just want to be alone,” Gaby blubbered, her voice barely audible over the sound of the contained wind.

Daisy started a soft vibration around her, hoping that the sensation would penetrate the noise and chaos. Even that slightest of quakes sent protests through her arms and shoulders, but she kept the steady vibrations going.

Gaby let out a sob and a stronger gust of wind radiated throughout the room, knocking Daisy backward into one of the padded walls. The blast of air missed Robbie. He bent closer to his daughter and reached out to embrace her. 

Gaby shook her head, her eyes wide. “Please, Papi. Just go.”

He looked over his shoulder at Daisy, and she gave him a slight nod. “Okay, Gabs,” he murmured. “We’re going. We’ll be outside that door, though. We’re not leaving you. Nothing you could do or say or become could ever make us leave you.”

Daisy nodded. “We love you.”

The couple slipped out the door. 

Once outside, Daisy let her body fall against the wall. “That went well,” she muttered. “Of course she woke up. She just went through terrigenesis. Her biology is still going haywire, which is probably why the ICER didn’t affect her as long as Jemma predicted. And now she doesn’t feel safe with us.”

Robbie considered. “No, I think she feels very safe with us.”

“She’s going through the most terrifying part of her life so far, and she doesn’t want us there with her while it happens. Being thirteen is hard enough. Heck, I wasn’t even an Inhuman back then, and I would’ve given anything for someone to stick around when times got confusing and scary.”

“Exactly. She feels safe enough to know she can scream at us and push us away, and we’ll still come back. That’s not nothing.”

Daisy nodded. “Okay,” she murmured. “Still, I don’t like leaving her alone.” Her eyes darted to the tablet strapped to the wall outside the door. She pulled it off and typed in the code to start the video feed.

Gaby was still sitting on the bed, shaking and rocking back and forth. The winds continued, but they seemed to be growing weaker and weaker. 

Wiping her eyes, Gaby settled back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling and then examining her own arms.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Daisy whispered. 

A faint knocking sounded through the video feed. At first, Daisy wasn’t sure where the sounds were coming from, but she saw Gaby look up curiously at the wall next to her bed. 

Gaby got onto her knees on the bed. She was trembling, but not as much as before. She moved to the control panel in the corner and started pushing buttons, and after a moment, the wall became transparent, and she was looking at Kamala on the other side.

“What the— oh,” Daisy said. “Someone must have forgotten to lock the inter-room communication feature on the wall panel.” Before the incident at Lakewood, these rooms had been used as overflow holding for some of the Watchdogs they had captured, and they had allowed communication between the rooms, hoping to uncover new intel.

“Should we go in?” Robbie asked cautiously.

Daisy shook her head. “No, might be best for them to be able to talk to each other. It might be comforting.”

“Miss Jemma mentioned that you were on the other side,” Kamala said. “My parents are on their way; I was getting bored. And pretty freaked out.”

Gaby nodded. “Me too.”

“Watch this,” Kamala said. She closed her eyes and concentrated. After a moment, Gaby gasped as she saw Kamala transform from a teenage girl into what looked like a middle-aged version of her. 

“Whoa,” Gaby gasped. 

“I know, right?” Kamala looked at her arm, and then pulled a strand of hair. “Shoot, I was going for Captain Marvel. What do I look like?”

“I don’t know. Like an older you?” Gaby posited. 

“Darn!” Kamala plopped down on her bed as she slowly shifted back into a fourteen-year-old girl. She turned serious. “Do you think they’re going to let us back in school? If I get kicked out, my parents are going to totally freak.”

Gaby shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s really a school to be let back into right now,” she muttered. “And it’s all my fault.”

“I don’t think that. I’m pretty sure it’s the fault of those bozos who tried to kidnap me.”

“They were trying to kidnap me,” Gaby said gloomily. “They thought you were me.”

“But why would they want to take you?” 

“To get back at my mom, probably,” Gaby mumbled.

“Wait, so it’s true? _Quake’s_ your mom? That is so awesome! I write fanfiction about her!”

Gaby made a face. 

“What? Some of it gets a load of upvotes, so it’s pretty good. I have one with her and Captain Marvel where they fight this evil monster in space and end up falling in love.”

“Ewww,” Gaby exclaimed. “My mom’s _married_.”

“Well, I thought they were cute together anyway,” Kamala said sheepishly. “Obviously real life’s different. But that’s so cool she’s your mom! I knew what Inhumans were because so many are superheroes but I had no idea that I might actually be one till now.”

Gaby dropped her head. “It’s not really that great. I used to really want to be an Inhuman but my parents didn’t want me to. Not until I was old, anyway. And now I guess I’m kinda seeing why. I just screw everything up.”

“No you don’t. They told me that you were the one who stopped the helicopter. Your powers are awesome!”

“No they’re not. They’re ugly and just make a mess of everything. You’re the one with cool powers. You can look like anyone you want and there’s no way that you’re going to destroy everything around you.”

Daisy’s stomach twisted. Robbie glanced at her and then back at the screen. “We shouldn’t be watching this,” he murmured. “At least not with audio, anyway. She’s safe, for now.”

Daisy nodded and switched off the audio. They continued to watch their daughter speak, though now without sound.

“Aunt Daisy?” 

They both turned and found themselves face to face with Sam.

“My mom’s not listening to me!”

“She’s been through a lot,” Daisy sighed. “This might not be the best—”

“I think I know who’s after Gaby, and my mom won’t listen!” Sam exclaimed. Daisy and Robbie shared a look.

“Talk to me, Sam.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy learns more about the culprit's past.

Sam lowered her voice and moved closer to Daisy and Robbie.

“Something really weird has been going down at Lakewood.” 

Daisy raised her eyebrow.

“It started about three weeks ago. I noticed that one of the security guards was acting super sketchy.”

“Sketchy how?”

“Like, I started noticing how he would just be standing around, watching people.”

Daisy’s heart sank. “That’s his job, Sam.”

“No, seriously, Aunt Daisy! It wasn’t just him doing his job. Trust me. I’ve been going to this school for the last thirteen years, and I’ve never seen a guard just _lurking_ the way he does. I mean, security guards usually hang around near the front office or the side entrances, right? But this guy kept showing up in weird places.”

“Like where?”

“About three weeks ago, when Mom asked me to pick Gaby up from soccer practice, I found him leaning against the wall near the girls’ locker room.”

“Wait, what?”

“I thought he was some kind of perv. Like, I never see security guards in that area of the school, not even the lady guard. So, I, uh…” she paused, and bit her lip. “Could you not tell my mom this next part? She’s already pissed at me for taking Dad’s ICER—which was totally for a good reason, by the way! If she finds out that I was lying to her, she won’t let me leave the house till I graduate.”

“You know I can’t promise you that, Sam, not without knowing what it is. But if it’s really that important, it shouldn’t matter what your mom might do.”

Sam nodded glumly. “I guess. So, for the next two weeks, when I told mom I was staying late for a group history project, I just hung out near the locker rooms and tried to figure out what this dude’s deal was. He never tried to go in, but he would watch the girls very closely when they walked out for practice. He would type something into his phone, and I even saw him take a picture of the group once.” She fidgeted.

“Did something happen, Sam?” Daisy asked, worry filling her voice.

“No, but that’s when I decided to start taking Dad’s prototype ICER to school. Not because I wanted to use it!” she quickly added. “I just wanted to have a way to stop him if he ever tried something with one of the girls.”

“Sam, why didn’t you tell someone?” Daisy sighed. “Me, or your mom or dad? Anything could have happened.”

“Because I know how it can go in cases like this,” Sam scowled. “Even if you guys believed me, who would the police believe? A security guard who was freakin’ Special Forces, or a high school senior who none of her teachers can stand and whose best argument is she thinks she saw something ‘weird’?” 

“But did you think we wouldn’t believe you? We have resources. We could’ve gotten to the bottom of it without you having to sneak a weapon into school or put yourself in danger.” _We could have stopped this from happening,_ Daisy finished in her head. No need to make Sam feel worse than she already did.

Sam dropped her eyes. “I thought that if I figured out what was going on myself, you would be convinced that I was ready for SHIELD next year.”

Daisy sighed at the earnest look on the teenager’s face. “Sam, we’ve told you. You have nothing to prove. But you need to go to college first, you know that. SHIELD will still be here when you get your degree.”

“I’m no good at school,” Sam muttered. “My parents think I should be this epic genius like them. They think that I’m just not ‘applying myself,’ but the truth is, I’m useless at school. But this… I can be good at this. I can figure things out and help people.”

Daisy gave Sam a small smile. “You _will_ help people. I’m sure of it. You already do.” She considered for a moment. “Wait. Back up. How do you know this guy was Special Forces?”

“I went into his office during morning drop off when I knew he’d be out and looked through his things,” Sam shrugged. “He had this weird, beaten-up backpack with a lock. I picked it and found discharge papers. Here’s the weird thing though. The papers had his picture on them, but the name on them was different from the one he has on his security guard badge. I also found a few phone numbers, a photo, a security officer badge from the CDC with the same name as the papers, a wrinkled envelope addressed to him, a ball of cash, and some gum wrappers. Oh and old tissues. It was gross. He’s a slob.”

“And you know how to pick a lock how?” Daisy asked wearily.

Sam snorted. “Dad taught me when I was about eleven.”

Daisy sighed. Leave it to Fitz to think that teaching a tween how to pick locks was good father-daughter bonding time.

“What was the name on the papers and ID?”

“Petrasek. Victor Petrasek.”

That name… why did it sound familiar? Daisy searched her mind for a moment, but, coming up short, she decided to put the matter aside for a moment.

“And what name was on his guard badge?”

“Roger Rawlins.”

 _Just remember whose side you’re on, if you ever knew._ The words flashed through Daisy’s brain, along with the image of the man trying to kick down the door behind which cowered her terrified daughter.

“Okay, what you are saying does sound suspicious,” Daisy began. “But it’s possible that he has nothing to do with what happened.” She didn’t believe her own words, but the last thing she wanted was Sam jumping to conclusions and getting herself in trouble.

Sam shook her head. “There’s more. He’s always hanging around this teacher, whispering with her. She teaches sixth-grade English, I think. At first I thought they were hooking up—which I thought was sleazy because the photo I saw was of him and his wife and kid—but the way they talked, it didn’t seem like they were into each other. It was more like…” she appeared to search her mind for the right word, “they were in business with each other or something.”

Daisy’s heart raced. “Do you know that teacher’s name?”

“Ms. Nelson.”

She sucked in a breath. “That was Gaby’s English teacher last year.”

“Oh. Do you think she pointed her out or something? I think they’d been talking long before I noticed it.”

Daisy didn’t answer. Her thoughts swirled. 

Instead, Robbie, who had remained silent up to that moment, spoke. “Dais… Gaby wrote that paper last year, remember, the one about being an Inhuman? Wasn’t that for English class?”

Daisy’s eyes widened. “You’re right.” She balled her hands into fists. How could someone whose job it was to nurture children betray her daughter to someone who wanted to do her harm?

“Thank you, Sam,” Daisy said quietly. “We’re going to catch this guy. I promise. And Sam? Don’t you ever do anything like this again.”

Sam nodded, looking at the ground.

“Save it for later. One day, you’ll make a heck of an agent.”

* * *

“So we suspect that this security guard, who uses the alias Rawlins, might have provided information about Gaby to the two men in the helicopter. If we’re right, he probably was the one who planted the terrigen.”

“And you really think it’s him?” Jemma asked from the bed in the med bay where she had been resting after the ordeal. 

Daisy nodded. “I’ve got a solid source. And the Watchdogs who tried to kidnap you and Kamala all but confirmed that they had someone on the inside. The only thing I don’t understand is how the guard got his hands on terrigen.”

Jemma bit her lip. “You said he was a security guard at the CDC?” 

“Apparently.”

“Daisy, the CDC has a few samples of terrigen crystals, as part of their monitoring of potential environmental health hazards in the United States. I coordinated the sample transfer from SHIELD two years ago, remember?”

“But they didn’t report any as stolen, did they?”

Jemma shook her head. “Maybe they didn’t notice, or didn’t want to create a political situation with SHIELD? I don’t know. But how else would a security guard have gotten access to such a rare and controlled substance?”

Daisy sighed, then looked at her watch. It was already past 10 P.M. Rather than getting closer to an end, the situation seemed to just be growing more complicated.

Gaby and Kamala were both still resting in their respective containment rooms. Kamala’s parents had been shaken and disturbed when they heard what had happened to their daughter, but after conversations with Daisy and Jemma, they were beginning to come to grips with their daughter’s new powers. They were now planning on staying.

It helped that Kamala’s gift wasn’t terribly destructive.

Gaby had finally let Robbie back into her room. He sat by her bed while she rested, not bothered by the occasional winds that filled the room. The last time Daisy had checked, she had found them both asleep.

Daisy turned her eyes back to Jemma. “Well, I guess first thing tomorrow we need to contact the CDC to see if any of their terrigen went missing.” She yawned widely. “In the meantime, I’m going to plot out a mission to pick him up, before he can do any more damage.”

“In the _meantime_? Daisy, you need to get some rest! You’ve had a rough day too. We all have.”

“It’s just a few bruises. Besides, it’s not like I’ve never been shot before. I heal quick. I’ll be good in no time.”

Jemma gave Daisy a stern look. “You know what I mean. It’s not just your body. Gaby needs you more than ever. She needs a mom who takes care of herself. Get some sleep. I’m staying here for the night, and Fitz picked up Leo so the four of us can stay together. Sam didn’t tell me—she doesn’t tell me much of anything these days, really—but I know she’s really shaken after what happened. We’d all feel safer on base.” 

Daisy nodded. “Okay, Jemma. I’ll get some rest. But first thing in the—”

A ding sounded from the phone in Daisy’s hand, at the same time that an identical ding sounded from Jemma’s, which was laying on the table next to her cot.

“It’s probably just the school again,” Daisy muttered.

The school had been sending out emails en masse all afternoon, first informing the parents of the incident and reassuring them of their children’s safety, then providing information about counseling services that would be available for the students if necessary, then outlining their plans for repairing and reopening the school as soon as possible and establishing an online instructional system in the interim.

Jemma reached for her phone on the side table with her good hand. Her eyes darkened as she read the message.

“Daisy…”

Daisy immediately opened her email and scanned the message.

“Once again, we reiterate _yadi yadi yadi_ , we ask for patience as we _yeah, yeah_.” Daisy’s voice slowed as she got to the end of the email, and it acquired an icy edge. “Rest assured that the students responsible are hereby expelled from Lakewood Academy. All of our cherished students deserve to learn in a safe environment, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that Lakewood represents such an environment.”

“That’s horrible,” Jemma murmured.

“‘The students responsible?’ Did they miss the helicopter descending from the sky and swiping up one of their ‘cherished students’?”

“I know.”

“Before we left, we told the administration exactly what had happened!” Daisy continued to rage. “Marshall said that the principal seemed understanding. And now she turns around and expels the so-called ‘students responsible’ like she’s a damn hero.” She sighed. “Guess that’s something else to add to the to-do list. Tomorrow, I’m going to go talk to her myself.”

Jemma nodded. “If you need backup or data, don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”

“Thanks, Jemma.” Daisy paused. “Please don’t mention this to Gaby. She’s got enough on her plate without this.”

* * *

Despite taking Jemma’s advice and going to bed early, Daisy got little sleep. She spent the night tossing and turning. At 4:00 A.M., she checked her clock and pulled herself out of bed with a sigh. If the night wouldn’t bring any sleep, then best start the day. 

First she headed to the gym for an early morning workout. Her upper body protested at every small motion, so she ended up just running on the treadmill for twenty minutes before calling it quits. 

By 5:00 A.M. she had settled down by a computer to dig into the past of Victor Petrasek, alias Roger Rawlins. She had barely made ten keystrokes when her eyes settled on an article quoting one Victor Petrasek.

_Roger was the light of our lives. His senseless death came too soon. He will always be missed and remembered by our entire family._

He was identified as uncle of the deceased.

Daisy’s stomach twisted as she looked at the photo topping the article. A sandy-haired teenager posed clutching a baseball bat, a wide smile across his face. She knew that boy’s face.

He was a frequent visitor in her nightmares. 

She barely had time to read the title of the article, “Family of Teen Murdered By Inhuman Serial Killer Commemorates His Life,” before she hastily closed the browser.

Any doubt she had that the security guard was responsible for the attempted kidnapping had vanished, replaced by a cold fury and the gnawing sense of guilt.

If she had found the serial killer sooner, not only would the three adolescents and the Inhumans murdered in retaliation still be alive, but Gaby would not currently have to fight her body’s propensity to whip the air around her into a storm. She wouldn’t have been expelled, or scared, or vilified. She would just be a normal thirteen-year-old girl going to school and soccer practice.

Daisy took three deep breaths and turned back to her computer. Sam had told her the address that she had seen on the envelope in the guard’s backpack. She would comprise a plan to raid his home that very day and hopefully catch him before he could escape under a different name, but first, she needed to know more about him.

* * *

Daisy was still at the computer when 8 A.M. rolled around. She was downing her fourth cup of coffee when the sound of loud running made her look up. She found herself face to face with Robbie, who was panting.

“Daisy, have you seen Kamala or Gaby? I can’t find them anywhere!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that's another cliffhanger. Sorry! Finale will be coming tomorrow or the day after so you won't have to wait too long!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy and the team go after the person responsible for the attack.

“What? What to you mean? What happened?” Daisy asked as she jumped to her feet, her pulse racing as fear heightened the effects of the caffeine.

Robbie looked at Daisy, his face stricken. “I woke up after Gaby this morning, about an hour ago. Maybe thirty minutes ago, I went to take a shower, and when I got back, she was gone. I looked in Kamala’s room, but Gaby wasn’t there either, and Kamala was gone. Her parents don’t know where she is. I’ve checked the kitchen and the common room, but they’re nowhere!” 

“Did you call her phone?”

“It’s still in the room,” Robbie replied.

“Gaby doesn’t go anywhere without that phone,” Daisy murmured. She activated her coms to the setting that would send a message to her team and all her senior agents. “Gaby and Kamala are missing. Search for them inside the base. If they are not located within thirty minutes, we will begin the search beyond the base.”

With Robbie on her heels, Daisy raced from her office.

As she rounded the corner, she almost ran straight into Fitz. 

She could have collapsed in relief. Fitz was accompanied by Kamala and Gaby, both looking rather sheepish, and Sam, who was fidgeting. 

“You were looking for this lot?” Fitz asked. 

“Where have you been?” Daisy exclaimed.

Gaby and Kamala exchanged a look but didn’t say anything, though the air around the girls stirred.

“They weren’t particularly hard to find,” Fitz shrugged. “It’s not every day that a male agent dressed in black somehow morphs into a tall blonde woman clad in a blue, red, and gold tactical suit. Nor do our hallways usually have air currents. Plus, my daughter told me where to find them.”

“Sam!” Gaby exclaimed, glaring at the older girl. “You promised you wouldn’t tell!”

Sam shifted from right to left. “Sorry, Gaby. I changed my mind. I couldn’t let you guys get hurt.”

Gaby continued to glare at Sam. 

“What were you planning on doing?” Daisy asked sternly.

Neither Gaby nor Kamala answered, so Daisy turned to Sam.

“They saw the email from the school. Gaby said she saw it on Uncle Robbie’s phone when he was asleep. They thought that if they could get the person who was actually responsible to confess on camera, the school would know it wasn’t their fault and would let them back in.”

“And how would they know who was responsible? Or where to find that person?” Daisy asked.

Sam hung her head. “I told them. I just wanted to check on them, to see how they were doing, and I found Gaby in Kamala’s room. They were both really upset about the email, and I let it slip that I knew who had done it and that you knew and were going to catch him. I… I gave them his address,” she finished softly.

“Sam!” Fitz said. “Why would you do that? Don’t you know how dangerous it would have been if they had gone to his house, after what he tried to do?”

“I was blackmailed!” Sam insisted with a glance at Gaby. 

“Blackmailed?” Fitz raised his eyebrow.

Sam took a deep breath. “So, sometimes when I pick Gaby up from school, I don’t go straight home or to the library. I… I’ve been trying to get my concealed carry permit, so I’ve been going to lessons at the range. They have a little cafe there, and so Gaby usually waits and does her homework.” She looked at her hands. “And sometimes I go when I don’t pick her up too. Gaby said she’d tell you if I didn’t give them the address.”

Fitz opened his mouth to reply, but then paused before saying, “We’ll talk about those little excursions later. But for now, I’m glad you decided to tell us before something horrific happened.”

Sam nodded. “I figured that it was important, so it shouldn’t matter what you guys might do,” she said with a quick glance at Daisy.

Daisy gave her a slight nod, before turning to the younger teenagers. Trying to keep her voice steady, she said, “Do you realize how incredibly dangerous and unwise this decision was? You risked your own lives, not to mention the lives of anyone who might have had to go after you to save you, and you scared us to death!” 

Gaby bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears. Still, she looked back with an edge of defiance. “But we can do it now!”

“Girls, you just got your powers yesterday. It takes time to learn how to control them. And things can get extremely dangerous when you don’t know how to control them. What the principal said in that email about you being responsible was not true, or fair. What happened at the school was not your fault, and we will do everything in our power to make them understand that. And _we_ will make sure this man never hurts you or anyone again. Not you. Understood?”

“But I don’t want you or Aunt Jemma to get hurt again!” Gaby cried.

“Really!” Kamala added. “You already did so much for us; we wanted to help this time.” 

Daisy softened her voice. “Gabs, Kamala, this is what we do. Sometimes we do get a little banged up, but we’ll be okay. Trust me. But this is a job for us. Do not put yourselves at risk like this again. Okay?”

Gaby and Kamala nodded. 

After a tense silence, Robbie spoke. “Let’s go tell your parents that you’re okay, Kamala. C’mon, girls.” 

Robbie, Gaby, and Kamala departed. After glancing at her father, Sam also slipped away.

Daisy turned to Fitz. “This must be some kind of cosmic karma,” she sighed.

Fitz gave her a small smile. “Trying to carry the world on their shoulders? Sneaking off to save the day no matter how outmatched? I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Daisy breathed in deeply. “We’re so screwed.”

* * *

“All agents ready,” Daisy hissed into her coms. They surrounded the modest house listed on the guard’s envelope. Daisy had confirmed that the house was being rented by one Roger Rawlins.

Daisy quaked open the door. She and two other agents rushed inside while the others remained on the perimeter. Her arms ached with every quake, but she was determined.

The front door opened into a living room and kitchen. Petrasek was nowhere to be seen in either room. 

They crept into the bedroom and bathroom, but found nobody.

“Any movement in the backyard?” she asked her team. She received a flurry of negatives.

With a sigh, she ordered two agents to remain on the perimeter while the rest searched the house for any indication of Watchdog connections or possible alternate addresses.

The house was sparse. They found few personal items, let alone anything indicating a potential Watchdog connection. The only suspicious aspect of the home was rolls of cash they found tucked under the bathroom sink.

“Marshall and Lee, stake out this house. See if he comes back. The rest of us are leaving.”

As the remainder of the team made their way back to base, Daisy considered their next move. It was possible that he was merely out and would return at any moment. At the same time, it was possible he had already fled town and shed his alias. 

She needed to talk to someone who might have an idea of his whereabouts.

Grabbing a tablet, Daisy set to work. It was easy—far too easy—to find the address of the sixth grade teacher Sam had identified. 

“New stop,” Daisy called. She gave the address and set her jaw. 

After a fifteen-minute detour, Daisy knocked on the teacher’s door. Her agents surrounded the building in the back in case of resistance, but as much as Daisy wanted to charge in guns blazing because of what the teacher had done, she knew that excessive force was not the path in this instance. 

“Hello?” Ms. Nelson asked as she opened the door. She gaped as she saw Daisy, clad in her tactical suit, gauntlets and all. “This really isn’t a good time,” she finished weakly.

“I think it is,” Daisy replied, sticking her boot into the door frame in case the teacher tried to flee back into her house.

“H- how can I help you?”

Daisy decided to go directly to the heart of the matter. “I know that you told Victor Petrasek, alias Roger Rawlins, the security guard that you’ve been talking to, about my daughter.”

“Y- your daughter?” Ms. Nelson asked, pulling a look of confusion that seemed a little exaggerated.

“Don’t play dumb,” Daisy responded. “I know you told that guard that Gabriela Reyes was an Inhuman. I know that he was behind yesterday’s attack. I need to find him before he hurts anyone else, and you’re going to help me.”

Ms. Nelson bit her lip. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “He never told me why he wanted to know about Gaby. I didn’t ask.”

“Because grown men go around secretly asking for information about thirteen-year-old girls all the time for utterly legitimate reasons,” Daisy answered, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I know. I- I was wrong. I just… I know this doesn’t justify what I did, but he gave me a thousand dollars. My dad is sick. I’m the only one who takes care of him, and on a teacher’s salary, I can’t afford the medical bills. I’m sorry.”

“You still sold out a child for money. That’s not okay, no matter what the reason.”

“I know,” Ms. Nelson replied. “But I do want to help you find him. Have you tried his apartment?”

Daisy sighed. “We’ve already gone to his house. He wasn’t there.”

“Not house, apartment,” Ms. Nelson emphasized. “He had a small studio in a rundown complex. I thought that was weird since he had so much money to give me. I went there twice.”

“Address?” Daisy asked, her heart racing.

Minutes later, the team was on the move once again. 

The studio apartment was on the first floor of a complex that was just as Ms. Nelson described. Trash littered the pathway leading up to the door, and the apartment only had one grimy window in the back. Through the window, they could see the outline of a man briefly before he disappeared from view.

“You have Fitz’s new glass-penetrating ICER bullets, right?” Daisy asked Piper.

“Complete with silencer,” Piper replied. “But I don’t have a good angle on him. He’s out of range.”

Daisy nodded.

“Fan out,” Daisy instructed her agents. "I’m going in." 

“Need backup on the inside, boss?” Piper asked.

“No, I’ll do that myself. You stay out back, ICER at the ready.”

Daisy took two deep breaths before charging at the door, opening it with one, hard quake.

“Stop right there!” Petrasek yelled, aiming a gun directly at Daisy’s chest. 

Daisy paused, lowering her hand. 

“So you think you have the right to just break into my property and take me down?” He spat on the ground. “Typical Inhuman. Thinking you’re better than us. Thinking you have a right to destroy our lives.”

“Is that why you did it?” Daisy said cautiously. “Is that why you spread the terrigen at Lakewood and tried to kidnap my daughter?”

“You needed to know how it felt. You people destroyed my family. You let an Inhuman murderer kill my sister’s only son. She’s never been the same since. And all because you protect your own over real humans.”

“But if you hate Inhumans so much, why create them?” Daisy asked, her pulse racing. “Why not just take your revenge without making new Inhumans?”

He looked at her in disbelief. “I don’t hurt children.”

“So what do you call what you were planning on doing to my daughter?”

He snorted. “Inhumans aren’t children. I have no problem with putting down a monster pup before it grows into a full-blown menace to society.”

Daisy tried to keep the rage out of her voice. “So you stole terrigen, changed your name, got a job at Lakewood, forced a teenager to go through terrigenesis, and planned on murdering a _child_ all to get revenge?”

He gave her a grim smile, brandishing his gun. “You deserve it.”

For a split second, Daisy took her gaze off of Petrasek to look out the window.

A second later, an ICER bullet had pierced the glass and collided with the back of Petrasek’s head. He crumpled on the ground, stunned.

Daisy glared down at his motionless form. “Maybe. But Gaby didn’t deserve it,” she hissed.

Piper rushed in through the front door. “Did you get what you needed?” she asked.

Daisy looked down at the minuscule recording device on the front of her suit.

“Yeah, I did.”

* * *

On the way back to base, Daisy called Robbie. 

“You got him?”

“Yeah,” Daisy responded. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone anymore.”

“That’s good. I’ll tell Gaby and Kamala right away. You coming back?”

“In a bit. I have something else I need to do first,” Daisy answered as she fiddled with the recording device.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” The principal asked as she opened her door. She looked afraid, even though Daisy had removed her gauntlets in an attempt to look less threatening.

“We need to talk.”

The principal nodded.

“In your email to parents, you said that ‘the students responsible’ were to be expelled. I’m assuming you meant Gabriela Reyes and Kamala Khan?”

“It’s only right,” the principal says nervously.

“No, it’s not. They were the victims in this, just as much as any other student. A security guard that you hired released the terrigen that caused them to transform. They were scared and had no control over the powers that he had forced them to acquire against their will.”

“And how do you know that it was a security guard?” the principal said, her voice growing more forceful and defiant.

“Another student reported that he had been acting suspicious, and when confronted, he confessed.” Daisy handed her the tablet and played the video from the raid earlier that day.

After Petrasek finished talking, the principal swallowed. “I see,” she replied, her lips pursed.

“So you will let Gabriela Reyes and Kamala Khan return to school, and send out an email to the parents refuting what you had said about the girls?”

“No.”

“No?” Daisy asked, her voice icy.

“I cannot let a student who destroyed an entire quadrant of the school and terrorized her fellow students back into our Academy.”

“But it wasn’t her fault!” Daisy insisted with a glare.

“Perhaps. But you haven’t been entirely truthful with us either, which put our school at an extreme risk. We are now seeing the consequences of that risk.”

“How was I untruthful?”

“Well, _Mrs. Reyes_ , I know a thing or two about Inhumans. It’s genetic. Yet you concealed your identity as an Inhuman. Gabriela could have changed at any moment and caused all of that destruction regardless, and because of your lies, our school was extremely vulnerable.”

Daisy narrowed her eyes. “My real name is on her admissions information. I never concealed anything. At her activities most people assume I go by her last name, so it’s just easier to respond to it. I’m not the first woman to do that! And most children of Inhuman parents aren’t exposed to terrigen as minors. It wasn’t an issue.”

Of course, that reasoning wasn’t entirely true. Daisy had always been surprised at people’s inability to recognize her as Quake when she was out in civilian clothes with Gaby. People saw what they expected to see. She had simply decided to lean into it and introduce herself as Mrs. Reyes to further protect Gaby.

“And yet your daughter still turned. So it doesn’t matter what happens to _most_ Inhuman children. The fact of the matter is, your child is a risk to the safety of other children, and a liability, as is the other girl.”

“My daughter is _not_ a liability. Nor is Kamala.”

“The current status of our building indicates otherwise.”

“Because they were attacked! I’m not suggesting they return to school immediately. They will need time to learn how to control their powers. But by the beginning of the next school year, they will be ready.”

“It’s still not safe for the children.”

“They are children! They have just as much a right to an education as your other students. None of this would have happened if you had properly vetted your security guards.” A stroke of understanding hit Daisy, and she narrowed her eyes. “Or perhaps that’s what you are really afraid of. If you can put the blame on Gaby and Kamala, then you won’t have to confess your own administration’s negligence.”

The principal looked away. “That’s preposterous.”

Daisy shrugged. “Fine. SHIELD will release a statement explaining the entire situation, that a security guard hired by Lakewood Academy purposefully targeted one of their students, causing massive damage, and that the school responded by denying responsibility and expelling the victims. How does that sound?”

The principal bit her lip. “Don’t do that.”

“Then the girls can stay?”

The principal sighed. “I suppose so, yes.”

“That’s all I wanted to hear. Have a nice day,” Daisy replied before turning on her heels and striding away.

* * *

“Hey Daisy, did you see what the principal just sent out?” Robbie asked as he met Daisy at the entrance to the base.

She shook her head. He handed her his phone.

“Upon further investigation we have determined that the two children previously indicated were not in fact responsible for yesterday’s incident. They were targeted by outside forces, and the damage was the consequences of this attack. Rest assured that Lakewood Academy will do everything in our power to keep all of our students safe, and are working closely with authorities to ensure that when the school reopens, it does so with utmost security,” Daisy read. 

“That’s a relief,” Robbie said. “What’d you tell her?”

“I just helped her see that the true sequence of events would reflect much more poorly on Lakewood than the presence of two teenagers. It’ll still be a long haul before Gaby is ready to go back to school, though. Kamala may be ready sooner.”

Robbie nodded. “And are we sure we want to keep sending our daughter to a school that wanted to expel her?”

Daisy sighed. Robbie’s words were tempting, especially for someone like her whose initial gut reaction was usually to run. “You know, despite everything we have tried to do, Inhumans are still seen with suspicion. I think wherever she goes, she’s going to face some prejudice. Might as well keep her in a familiar place with her friends.”

“Yeah,” Robbie responded. He wrapped Daisy in a hug. “Gaby couldn’t ask for a better mom.”

* * *

“The school will reopen in a few weeks, but Kamala and Gaby will probably not be ready to return at that time,” Daisy explained to her daughter, Kamala, and Kamala’s parents. She turned to Kamala’s parents. “I think Kamala should stay here this week. We can begin teaching her how to control her powers. With luck, she’ll be back to school in no time.”

“Thank you for taking good care of our daughter,” Kamala’s father murmured. Her mother nodded her agreement.

“It’s a long road, but we’ll be here for her all along the way,” Daisy replied with a smile. Kamala and her parents retreated back to their rooms. After a moment, Daisy and Robbie led Gaby back to hers.

“So I can really go back?” Gaby asked nervously. “Seriously?”

Daisy nodded. “Like I said, not right away. Probably the beginning of next school year. Your teachers agreed to send in assignments until you’re ready to go back.”

Gaby nodded.

“And we need to talk about what happened earlier.”

Gaby looked down at her shoes.

“We know you tried to do what you did because you wanted to help. But it was extremely dangerous. You don’t fully understand your powers yet. That’s normal. But until you have control over your powers, you need to be careful. Don’t put yourself in danger because you think you have a golden ticket out of it.”

Gaby nodded. “It’s just, this was all my fault. You and Aunt Jemma got hurt. Kamala has to miss school too, now. I just wanted to fix it.”

“It wasn’t your fault, sweetie. They went after you because they were angry at me. Your papa and I are going to try as hard as I can to make sure that never happens again. But it wasn’t your fault.”

“Okay,” Gaby said in a small voice.

“And also, if Sam was taking you places that she shouldn’t have, you should have told me, not used it against her to force her do something that made her uncomfortable.” Daisy noticed that Robbie stole a glance at her. Okay, perhaps that was hypocritical advice, but her daughter was a seventh grader, not a spy. 

Gaby nodded.

“Now get some rest. It’s been a long day for all of us. And tomorrow we have to start learning how to use your powers, alright?”

Gaby’s gloomy face turned up into a small smile.

“We love you, sweetheart,” Daisy murmured as she and Robbie wrapped Gaby into a hug.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy helps Gaby practice her powers.

“Okay, concentrate. Breathe in, breathe out. What do you feel?”

Daisy and Gaby were standing in a clearing in the woods behind their house. The air was crisp and still, except for when Gaby practiced her powers. 

Gaby’s eyes lit up. “I feel this… lightness in my hands. It feels cooler, and kinda tickles.” She giggled.

“Great. Focus on that.”

Two weeks had passed since the incident at Lakewood. The school was scheduled to reopen in another week. Jemma was working with Kamala at SHIELD to learn how to control her powers. Meanwhile, Daisy had decided to take a leave of absence from SHIELD. Piper had run the organization in her absence before; there was hardly a better reason than this to ask her to do so again.

“Okay, what now?” Gaby asked, her eyes half closed.

Daisy pointed up at the lower branches of the trees around them. “See those wind chimes that I set up? I want you to direct your energy up there. Try to make them ring without blowing them off the branches.”

Gaby nodded. She closed her eyes to further focus her energy. Then, opening her eyes, she cautiously raised her left hand and directed a stream of energy at the largest wind chime.

A deep, sonorous sound reverberated throughout the clearing. Gaby grinned and moved her hand towards a smaller silver one that let out a tinkling sound. She moved her hand to a medium wooden chime and directed another gust of wind, a little too strong that time. The wind chime fell from the tree into a crumbled heap on the ground.

“It’s okay,” Daisy reassured her. “Just keep going.”

Gaby nodded and sent a weaker stream of air to another wind chime. Its sound mixed with the other reverberations throughout the clearing.

“That’s beautiful, sweetheart.”

“That was so cool!” Gaby said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. 

Daisy squeezed her hand, noting how cold it felt. “This is like something that my mom used to teach me. Powers can be scary and destructive, but they can also be beautiful. They can make music.”

Gaby grinned. 

“You’ve been doing so well. Your Uncle Fitz had a present for you, and I think you’re ready for it now. It’ll really help you learn how to control your gift.”

Gaby’s eyes widened in anticipation. Daisy went behind the trees and pulled out a large box wrapped in colorful paper with a balloon and monkey design. 

“Can I open it now?” Gaby asked.

“Of course!” 

Gaby ripped open the wrapping paper but slowed when she reached the box. She opened it gingerly, glancing back up at Daisy before she looked inside.

“Whoa,” she gasped when she saw the present.

“He thought it would help you practice,” Daisy smiled.

Gaby pulled out the gift, a wide glider-style airplane made of extremely light materials.

Gaby’s grin faded slightly. “But what if I break it?”

“You think your Uncle Fitz would make something easy to break?” Daisy reassured her. “It’s extremely sturdy, almost unbreakable. Just try it. Watch.”

Daisy took the glider from Gaby. Using her powers, she pushed the airplane high in the air above them.

“Now, you fly it down,” Daisy instructed. “Ready?”

When Gaby nodded, she stopped quaking. The glider started to fall. 

Gaby threw her hands into the air and sent a gust of wind that sent the small aircraft tumbling. She tried again and again until she managed to create a current that sent the aircraft across the clearing in a smooth path.

“Do you like it?” Daisy asked when Gaby finally tired of practicing. The girl hugged the glider to her chest.

“It’s the best present ever!” she exclaimed.

Daisy smiled. She wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Ready to go back in?”

Gaby nodded, clutching her glider, and mother and daughter began the short walk through the woods to their house.

As they walked in through the back door, Robbie called, “Hey! We’ve got visitors.”

Daisy look up and saw Coulson and May smiling at her from the kitchen. Before she could say anything, Gaby rushed up to May.

“PoPo, I can make an airplane fly! Come look!” She grabbed May by the hand and dragged her back out into the yard.

“It seems she’s adjusting well,” Coulson said as he watched Gaby show off her new skills with the glider through a window.

“She’s pretty resilient, that’s for sure,” Daisy said, smiling fondly out at Gaby. “Sorry the house is such a mess,” she added as an afterthought. “Straightening up is a lost cause these days.”

Coulson shook his head with a smile. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got a new little windstorm running around.”

Daisy shrugged. “Some of it’s me, honestly. The nightmares are starting to go away, but I did quake everything off our bedroom shelves the other night. And Gaby is learning to control her powers when she’s awake, but some nights can get pretty crazy.”

Robbie laughed. “She moved all the furniture in the living room one night and didn’t even wake up.”

Coulson gave Daisy a hug and Robbie a firm pat on the shoulder. “It’s nice to see you three so relaxed, even though things are a bit chaotic,” he said, gesturing to the room around them.

Daisy laughed. “Who would have thought it, but it seems a little chaos is just what we needed.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


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